 Philosophy 102: Introduction to Philosophical
Inquiry
Plato, The Apology and the Crito1. What are the charges against Socrates?
2. What has caused prejudice to arise against Socrates?
3. How does Socrates refute the charge that he corrupts the youth?
4. What is Socrates' argument that he believes in God?
5. What has Socrates spent his whole life doing?
6. Socrates says he is a "gadfly." Explain
7. Why doesn't Socrates plead for his life or accept exile?
8. What argument does Socrates use to show that death is a good?
9. State Socrates' arguments that he should not escape.
Recommended Reading
I. Some features of the life of Socrates:
- "Daimon" or "sign" or "voice": received
prohibitory messages in his fits of abstraction and dreams (probably epilepsy.
- The Delphic Oracle: Chaerephon asked the Oracle if there were any man
living who was wiser than Socrates. The answer was "no."
1.
Socrates concluded that the god meant that he was the wisest man because he recognized his
own ignorance.
2. The Delphic Oracle, as you know, spoke with great ambiguity. Croesus,
the king of Lydia, was contemplating war with Persia. Being prudent, he consulted the
Oracle before going to war. The Oracle responded, "If Croesus went to war with Cyrus,
he would destroy a mighty kingdom."Delighted with this prediction, he went to war,
but he was soundly defeated by Cyrus. Croesus wrote a bitter letter complaining to the
Oracle. The Oracle responded that he had indeed destroyed a mighty kingdom--his own.
3. Socrates distinguished himself in bravery many times in the Athenian
wars.
4. He seemed indifferent to external hardships; in the winter he wore
the same old toga and went barefoot through the streets of Athens.
5. His wife's name was Xanthippe: the word now means a nasty shrewish
woman.
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| 1. What
are the charges against Socrates? |
He does not believe in gods whom the state believes in.
He teaches people to disbelieve the gods.
He corrupts the young--infusing in them a spirit of criticism.
He is a wrongdoer--he speculates about the heavens and things beneath
the earth (a scientist!)
He makes the weaker reason seem the stronger--a Sophist.
.Sophists: the encyclopedists, the polymaths, knew a
little about everything. They believed that it is impossible to have any certain
knowledge.
- They emphasized the practical uses of reason and rhetoric. The
right way to win lawsuits--Fuller says that they were the corporation lawyers of that day.
- Skeptical with regard to matters of morals and knowledge.
- Took payment for their teaching and were accused of corrupting the youth.
Examples:
1. A finger is both long and short.
2. Proof that you are on the other side of campus.
3. Protagoras: Consider the well-known story of Euthlus and Protagoras. Euathlus wanted to
become a lawyer but could not pay Protagoras.
Protagoras agreed to teach him under the condition that if Euathlus won
his first case, he would pay Protagoras, otherwise not. Euathlus finished his course of
study and did nothing. Protagoras sued for his fee. He argued:
If Euathlus loses this case, then he must pay (by the judgment of the
court).
If Euathlus wins this case, then he must pay (by the terms of the contract).
He must either win or lose this case.
Therefore Euathlus must pay me.
But Euathlus had learned well the art of rhetoric He responded:
If I win this case, I do not have to pay (by the judgment
of the court).
If I lose this case, I do not have to pay (by the contract).
I must either win or lose the case.
Therefore, I do not have to pay Protagoras.
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| 2. What has
caused prejudice to arise against Socrates? |
Divine sign--epilepsy
He is the gadfly--he tests and examines men (by implication they are
ignorant pretenders). Under his questioning the leaders of society appear to be fools.
The resulting prejudice and suspicion of the multitude.
Delphic Oracle: there is no one wiser than Socrates.
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| 3. How does
Socrates refute the charge that he corrupts the youth? |
There are stock charges against all philosophers. (But this reason is
irrelevant--the relevant question is whether or not it is true.
If he is ignorant and knows nothing, how could he teach them anything?
Where are my accusers? (An ad ignorantiam argument)
p has not been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt
Therefore not-p is true.
Substitute subjects of parking, God, ESP, etc. for p in the
above argument.
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| 4. What is
Socrates' argument that he believes in God? |
He catches his accusers in a contradiction: He can't believe in false
gods and be an atheist.
He can't believe in divine things and be an atheist.
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| 5. What
has Socrates spent his whole life doing? |
"Give your whole attention to the question, is what I say just, or
is it not?"
**You should only do what is right--irrespective of matters of life or
death.
Your life should be spent on the improvement of your soul.
An unexamined life is not worth living.
The Socratic Paradox: People act immorally, but they do
not do so deliberately.
- The outline of the paradox:
1. Everyone seeks what is most serviceable to himself. If you know what is good, you will
always act in a way to achieve it.
2. If you act in such a way that it is not conducive to your good, then you must have been
mistaken (i.e., ignorant).
3. If you act with knowledge, then then what you get is the most serviceable to yourself.
4. knowledge = (df.) virtue, good, arete
ignorance = (df.) bad, evil, not useful
5. Since no one knowingly harms himself, if harm comes to you, then you acted in
ignorance.
6. We are responsible for what we know or for that matter don't know.
- Examples of tending your own soul:
1. Cheryl: saying she was 12 in order to get into a movie as a child; saying she was 18 in
order to date a 21 yr. old; trying to get a driver's license early. She seeks an edge--in
fact fairness to her is the assumption of an advantage. Thus, when she is cut a fair deal,
she feels as though she did not get her fair share. Note how her soul is out of balance
(not centered) because she becomes different things to different people. Thus, she becomes
inauthentic through her role playing for different people.
2. The student who cheats on a test--how he harms his own soul: loss of confidence or
pride or guilt.
3. Such is the thinking behind Pope's "Oh, what a wicked web we weave
when first we practice to deceive."
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A gadfly is a fly that stings or annoys livestock; hence one that acts
as a provocative stimulus.
Socrates is trying to arouse drowsy, apathetic people to realize that
they do not know themselves, and do not know what they claim to know.
Consider the Theaetetus as an example of his stinging:
- The first position is that knowledge is perception. (Protagoras had
argued that "Man is the measure of all things.")
A. If that be, then how can Protagoras rank his knowledge over that of other men.
B. If knowledge is the same as perception, hearing a foreign language would be the same as
understanding it. I can perceive something without knowing what I am perceiving.
(Duck-rabbit; bear climbing a tree)
C. If knowledge were the same as perception, as soon as I cease to perceive, then I cease
to know.
D. I can know some things without perceiving them (truths of mathematics, telephone
number).
- Second Attempt: Knowledge is true opinion.
A. Objection: an opinion can be true without involving knowledge.
B. Murderer on trial, inadequate evidence, vote "guilty," correct opinion, no
knowledge.
Third Attempt: Knowledge is true opinion plus
explanation. If it can't be analyzed, it can't be known.
A. If explanation means analyzing into elements of differentia, then it cannot be
knowledge, for the results of analysis are unanalyzable.
B. Therefore, the unknowable is reduced to what cannot be known.
C. Not completely a negative result because Socrates has shown by implication that
knowledge is the intelligent grasping of the structure and relationships of a thing.
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| 7. Why
doesn't Socrates plead for his life or accept exile? |
Socrates knows what he is, and knows that life is not worth living if he
cannot choose what is right (cf. the Socratic paradox).
He cannot change for the betterment of his soul; thus, he will continue
his questioning. Strangers could tolerate his teaching no better than his fellow citizens.
He would be continually expelled.
He cannot violate the god's order (Delphi): There is no one wiser than
Socrates.
The dilemma:
If I drive away the young men, they will persuade their parents to expel
me.
If I do not drive them away, their fathers will (because I am influencing their sons).
(Either I drive them away or I do not drive them
Thus, either they will persuade their parents to expel me or their fathers will.
The dilemma is a rhetorical device which is crushing but of little
logical significance. Let us spend a few moments analyzing it. Consider this one:
If the speech is informative, it will bore me.
If the speech is entertaining, I won't learn anything
Either the speech is informative or entertaining.
Thus, the speech will bore me or I'll not learn.
Ways to refute a dilemma:
(1.) Take it by the horns: at least one of the conditionals is false.
(e.g. Mark Twain, Will Rogers).
(2.) Escape between the horns: the disjunction is false.
(3.) Set up a counterdilemma: negate the consequents and
switch them in the conditionals. Then draw the conclusion.
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| 8. What argument
does Socrates use to show that death is a good? |
|
death |
|
__________________________|_________________________ |
| loss of consciousness:
deep sleep |
to another place: continue
seeking truth |
× Hell not possible
because of the Socratic Paradox* |
* Evil is ignorance; god is knowing, so god is good. God wouldn't help anyone by doing
them harm (sending them to hell).
You don't help someone by harming them. (No harm can come to a good person. )
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| 9. State Socrates'
arguments that he should not escape. |
The action would go against his parents who reared him: his education,
his state (tacit agreement to abide by the laws).
If he left, his accusers would be proved right--He would not stand for
what he knows to be true.
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Thomas Common wrote in his 1907 preface to Freidrich Nietzsche's Beyond
Good and Evil that "many people, in spite of Socrates, instinctively choose the
bad, when it is most profitable to themselves."
Thomas Carlyle writes, "It is all very well to talk of getting rid
of one's ignorance, of seeing things in their reality, seeing them in their beauty; but
how is this to be done when there is something which thwarts and spoils all our efforts?
This something is sin." William Barrett, Irrational Man, p. 71.
Recommended Reading
Fydor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground, section 7.
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